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13 March 2018

The (Ocean) Monumental Parts Pack

Elspeth De Montes has her hands on a large 2017 LEGO® set but she isn't going to build it! She simply must alert you to its parts and the fantastic quantities they come in.

It is time for another one of my parts reviews, so I hope you have your sea-legs ready as we set sail and look at 21136 The Ocean Monument. This set was an August 2017 release for the LEGO® Minecraft theme containing 1,122 elements including two minifigures, and retails at £119.99 / $119.99 / 119.99€ (currently cheaper at Amazon UK and some cheaper still at BrickLink).

Bein' Green

Sand Green is a rather sought-after colour, in part due to the famous retired Modular 10185 Green Grocer and also as it made frequent appearances in the Harry Potter theme. I thought it might be good to analyse Ocean Monument as a ‘green parts pack’ as Sand Green accounts for approximately 25% of the elements, with Earth Green [TLG]/Dark Green [BL] another 25%. That’s a LOT of green for a set with over 1000 parts.

There are 312 Sand Green parts across 20 different elements: namely the 19 elements pictured above plus a single printed element I will mention later. The larger volumes are mainly bricks:

While Minecraft sets are not for everyone, looking at this set as a parts pack really opens up the building possibilities for fans of green!

The new and rarer colours of LEGO pieces in 21136 The Ocean Monument

Technic Brick 1X2, Ø4.9 was last seen in Earth Blue [TLG]/Dark Blue [BL] (Element ID 6186833|Design ID 3700) back in 2008 in 8635 Mission 6: Mobile Command Center from the Agents theme, while Plate 6x6 appears for the first time in Earth Green (6186831|3958). These two elements are supplied in starkly contrasting numbers within this set; 15 Earth Green plates but only one Earth Blue Technic brick.

Alex’s Armour No. 13 (6167632|19723), Weapon No. 3 aka the blocky sword (6167566|18787) and Figure Helmet No.1 (6192830|34091) all appear in Medium Lavender for the first time. This colour is not a particular war-evoking colour in my mind. The official description says, “Put on your enchanted armor, grab your enchanted sword and prepare for action!” Enchanted weapons and armour are clearly available in less aggressive colour schemes.

There are three parts that appear in both The Ocean Monument and ONE other set at the moment; these are worth a mention as I think they will be more useful to most builders than the printed tiles and minifigure elements, and they come in higher quantities. I’ve also included one part in this picture that is supplied in such a plentiful amount to be of particular interest as it only appears in one other set that is currently available.

Holder Ø3.2 W/Tube Ø3.2 Hole in Bright Orange [TLG]/Orange [BL] (6162893|11090) also appeared in the summer 2017 Nexo Knights set 70356 The Stone Colossus of Ultimate Destruction. There are 12 supplied in The Ocean Monument in comparison to just one in the Nexo Knights set, so this would have been an easy part to overlook until now.

Plate 2X2 in Warm Gold [TLG]/Pearl Gold [BL] (6162885|3022) was in a single set from the first wave of The LEGO Ninjago Movie sets: nine were supplied with 70612 Green Ninja Mech Dragon compared to 24 within this set.

Flat Tile 2X2 in Aqua [TLG]/Light Aqua [BL] (6192270|3068) also appeared in a summer 2017 set, this time it was Elves 41187 Rosalyn's Healing Hideout, but there are 16 supplied in The Ocean Monument compared to a measly two in the previous set.

On the subject of Aqua, the other element included in this colour is Brick 1x2 (6022032|3004). This is by no means a rare part, it appears in at least 15 other sets, but it is nice to have 16 supplied at once.

Finally, my rationale for mentioning Sand Green Brick 1x6 (6177081|3009) in this review is that the only other set currently commercially available that contains this element is last year’s Modular, 10255 Assembly Square. It contained 12, but Ocean Monument contains a whopping 61! This volume is however comparable to a couple of retired sets: there were 56 in 10228 Haunted House and 87 in 3450 Statue of Liberty.

I have to quickly mention the variation in tone of the Sand Green bricks; the darker and lighter tones really stand out. For some models this will make little difference, and in fact for buildings I often think some variation in tone is beneficial. It’s just very noticeable with 61 bricks laid out for comparison.

Jumpers

There are 49 Plate 2X2 W 1 Knob (Design ID 87580) in this set across five colours:

Sand Green

Pearl Gold

Bright Yellow [TLG]/ Yellow [BL]

Medium Stone Grey [TLG]/Light Bluish Gray [BL]

Dark Stone Grey [TLG]/Dark Bluish Gray [BL]

Out of these colours, Sand Green (Element ID 6186826) is relatively rare as it only appears in two other sets at present, both tie-in sets from The LEGO Ninjago Movie: 70608 Master Falls contains four, while 70612 Green Ninja Mech Dragon contains only one. However, 32 Sand Green jumpers are in Ocean Monument which is great for builders wanting to increase their supply.

There are eight of the Warm Gold (Element ID 6107193) supplied with this set, which is worth a mention as the other sets only came with one or two.

Decorated LEGO pieces in 21136 The Ocean Monument

There are three printed elements that are exclusive to this particular Minecraft set. Flat Tile 2X3, No.4 in Earth Blue (Element ID 6192742) forms the face of the squid, Flat Tile 2X2 Inv. No.2 in Sand Green (6192760) is the face of the guardian and Flat Tile 2X3, No.5 in Brick Yellow [TLG]/Tan [BL] (6192751) forms the face of the elder guardian.

I decided to build the two guardians to show how the printed tiles are used as the faces. The little creatures are very cute and use some of the rarer parts that come with this set. They may be guardians in the Minecraft world but I am definitely getting some ‘pufferfish’ vibes. (Did anyone else love the character of the little pufferfish with a short fuse in A Shark’s Tale?)

I always like to try and think about how else I could put a Minecraft tile to good use in a non-Minecraft MOC. This is not always easy due to their pixelated nature, although a good fallback is a piece of contemporary artwork on a wall. I did think the squid’s face looked like a nasty weather system approaching the east coast, so I couldn’t resist a quick photo opportunity.

21136 The Ocean Monument contains 1,122 elements and retails at £119.99 / $119.99 / 119.99€ but currently is cheaper at BrickLink, the world's biggest LEGO® marketplace. Please follow any link from New Elementary to BrickLink before you buy!

4 comments:

For what it's worth, when an item is "enchanted" in Minecraft it gains a swirly purplish aura over its normal texture. Not even remotely close to just outright being purple, but, uh, they tried I guess.